Playoff’s over — season not

The seeds were sown back in November when the team lost 11 straight games and had been playing catch-up since.

And although the four remaining games will be quoted by some as meaningless, Rampage players still have a lot riding on the outcomes.

The first impact these four games have will be next year’s contracts. Many Rampage players’ contracts end with the regular season, so these players will try and impress management and other team scouts that they are worth the money they’ve received and then some next season.

The second impact will be the Rampage record book.

This team has a chance to earn the second best record in franchise history with four wins this week.

The first Rampage team in 2002-03 finished with 87 points and lost in three straight games to Norfolk in the playoffs. Little did we know then that the Rampage would take another five years before posting their best ever mark of 94 points in 2007-08 before reaching the postseason again.

Should the Rampage win out this week, they will accumulate 88 points with a 38-30-5-7 record.

If they win three of their last four games, that will give them the second highest win total in team history with 37, one win better than last season and the inaugural year. The main difference between this season’s above 500 finish and last year’s sub 500 record by two (36-38-2-4) was the number of overtime games.

Depending on how the week goes, all seven teams in the West could finish at or above .500!

Ray Edwards and Mike Pelino have done a great job in righting the ship since Greg Ireland lost his job on Nov. 20 after a 7-2 drubbing on home ice against Peoria. That stretched the Rampage losing streak to 11 and their record fell to 6-9-2-1 after an impressive 6-1-1-0 start.

The Edwards and Pelino duo has piloted the club to a 28-21-3-6 mark since and if the Rampage had held onto third period leads in February and March, we would be writing a different story today.

For the record, the Rampage have missed the playoffs seven of their nine years in existence under the Florida and Phoenix regimes.

Their most successful team, two years ago, featured a veteran defense of Bryan Helmer, Travis Roche, Brendan Bell, Ryan Caldwell, Keith Yandle and Logan Stephenson.

Bell this season and Helmer last season were AHL All-Stars, while Yandle played his second full season in Phoenix and Caldwell and Roche played in Europe. Stephenson had a rock solid season in Adirondack this year as part of the Philadelphia Flyers system.

Compare that with the current crop of experienced defensemen Sean Sullivan, Shaun Heshka, and David Schlemko and young players, Jeff May, Nick Ross, Jonas Ahenlov and really young guys Chris Summers and Mathieu Brodeur, and you can see why the backline had some issues.

Thomas and Zigomanis were part of last season’s Pittsburgh Penguins Stanley Cup winning season, while Durno played in Colorado much of this year with the Avs. Tenute and Murley played in Europe and DiSalvatore was down the road in Houston scoring his usual 20 goals a season.

Although the Rampage can look at the front end and see Joel Perrault and Jeff Hoggan, young studs Kyle Turris, Mikkel Boedker and Brett MacLean did combine to score a ton of goals, but they are still learning the value of team defense.

Josh Tordjman and Al Montoya provided better than average goaltending two years ago.

What’s the point?

Rampage fans have been very patient and this year the team has been a winner, albeit not a playoff team. Special teams have been great, both in the AHL’s top 10.

Looking at winning AHL clubs like Hershey, Hamilton, Chicago and Worcester, those teams are laden with veteran leadership with a couple of young up and coming kids on their rosters.

The Rampage have the up and comers, but lack the veteran leadership, especially on the backline.

2010-2011 will feature another team in the division — Oklahoma City. All that means is the competition will be that much tougher to reach the postseason again.

The parent Coyotes, having a terrific NHL season, could help out the AAA team by getting some solid AHL types to balance out the young talent of Turris, MacLean and Boedker along with the David Spina’s and Alexandre Picard’s of the club to make the next edition Calder Cup worthy.